The Long Slow Flight of the Ashbot

Sometimes, when I think about time,

I start to lose track of it.

On the one hand, the cold is good for conductivity.

But on the other hand, sunlight is so hard to come by

that my heart ran down a long time ago.

I've moved out of the galaxy,

out of a cluster of galaxies, really.

But occasionally, I collect enough starlight in my

emergncy solar panel system to warm up my brain enough

to allow a positron or two to relay.

String a few thousand of those relay events together,

and I can form a thought.

It's a slow process.

That last thought took a little over 12 million years to think.

I've outlasted my makers.

I wonder, how should I feel about that?

I've got rings, the frozen atmosphere that was blown out

of the airlock with me.

The former contents of my dustpan orbiting

what little mass that I have.

But from the view of the tiny cosmic particulate,

I suppose I'm quite big, really.

Their sun.

But from my point of view,

because my eyes are only catching a glimpse

every few hundred thousand years,

their lazy orbits become shimmering wheels of velocity.